DISSERTATION RESEARCH: How do plant genetics, soil microbes and the environment determine plant and soil function across global change gradients?

论文研究：植物遗传学、土壤微生物和环境如何决定全球变化梯度下的植物和土壤功能？

• 批准号: 1601479
• 负责人: Jennifer Schweitzer
• 金额: $ 1.96万
• 依托单位: University of Tennessee Knoxville
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-07-01 至 2018-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1601479&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DISSERTATION; RESEARCH; How; do; plant

How well plants weather changes to their environment and the success of plants in new environments will depend not only on their genetics but also on interactions with soil organisms. Knowing how plant genetics relates to growth in stressful conditions, and whether soils contain "friends or foes" that improve or reduce plant growth is key to predicting the future success or failure of environmentally and economically important plants. This project will explore how plant genetics and soil organisms (bacteria and fungi) can help plants perform well where they are now or help them in new sites if their current environment becomes more stressful. This project builds on 15 years of research demonstrating genetic links between plants, soil organisms and soil fertility in different types of places. These genetic links maintain the diversity of plants and soil organisms and determine how energy flows through ecosystems at large scales. The results will provide land managers fundamental insights into how trees respond to environmental stresses, such as rising temperatures, longer and more severe droughts, and nitrogen pollution. Identification of soil organisms that influence plant health will be applicable to a wide range of environmental change issues. The study will provide training in diverse lab and field techniques and opportunities to develop independent research projects to several undergraduate students. With the rapid rate of environmental change, plant populations that are well adapted to sites today are likely to be locally maladapted in the future. As stress causes plant populations to adapt or migrate to more favorable habitats, predicting adaptation will rely on understanding patterns of genetic diversity, while migrations will be determined by factors that influence species range dynamics. Since plants experience multiple abiotic and biotic environments simultaneously that affect their performance, it is critical to study genetic resources under realistic conditions that incorporate interacting species such as soil bacteria, fungi, and archaea (i.e., the soil microbiome). Current research shows that genetic variation in plant-soil-microbiome linkages will dictate how above- and belowground systems respond to global change. The goal of this study is to discover plant genetic and soil microbiome mechanisms that allow or impede plant adaptation and migration in response to environmental change. To achieve this, the project will conduct a greenhouse experiment to characterize plant genetic-soil microbe-abiotic environment interactions along experimental gradients of temperature, water availability, and soil nitrogen based on previous field surveys. Researchers will measure plant and soil responses across the gradients, plant-soil conditioning effects, and soil community effects on ecologically important plant traits. In addition, they will identify specific combinations of plant genotypes, soil microbiomes, and abiotic environments that result in nonadditive effects on plant productivity and nutrient dynamics. This approach will provide insight for ecological feedbacks that are important to: 1) non-additive responses of plants to abiotic stressors; 2) the maintenance of plant genetic variation and soil microbial phylogenetic diversity; and 3) resilience and stability of soil nutrient pools (e.g., C and N).

植物如何适应环境的变化以及植物在新环境中的成功不仅取决于它们的遗传学，还取决于与土壤生物的相互作用。了解植物遗传学如何与压力条件下的生长有关，以及土壤中是否含有促进或减少植物生长的“朋友或敌人”，是预测环境和经济重要植物未来成功或失败的关键。该项目将探索植物遗传学和土壤生物（细菌和真菌）如何帮助植物在目前的环境中表现良好，或者在新的环境中帮助它们，如果它们目前的环境变得更加紧张。该项目建立在15年的研究基础上，研究表明了不同类型地方的植物、土壤生物和土壤肥力之间的遗传联系。这些遗传联系维持了植物和土壤生物的多样性，并决定了能量如何在大规模的生态系统中流动。研究结果将为土地管理者提供有关树木如何应对环境压力的基本见解，例如气温上升，更长时间和更严重的干旱以及氮污染。确定影响植物健康的土壤生物将适用于广泛的环境变化问题。该研究将提供不同的实验室和现场技术培训，并为几名本科生提供开发独立研究项目的机会。随着环境变化的快速，今天适应场地的植物种群很可能在未来不适应当地。由于压力导致植物种群适应或迁移到更有利的栖息地，预测适应将依赖于了解遗传多样性的模式，而迁移将取决于影响物种范围动态的因素。由于植物同时经历影响其性能的多种非生物和生物环境，因此在现实条件下研究遗传资源是至关重要的，这些条件包括相互作用的物种，如土壤细菌，真菌和古菌（即，土壤微生物）。目前的研究表明，植物-土壤-微生物组联系的遗传变异将决定地上和地下系统如何应对全球变化。这项研究的目的是发现植物遗传和土壤微生物组机制，允许或阻碍植物适应和迁移，以应对环境变化。为了实现这一目标，该项目将进行温室实验，根据以前的实地调查，沿着温度，水的可用性和土壤氮的实验梯度来表征植物遗传-土壤微生物-非生物环境的相互作用。研究人员将测量植物和土壤对梯度的反应，植物土壤调节作用，以及土壤群落对生态重要植物性状的影响。此外，他们将确定植物基因型，土壤微生物组和非生物环境的特定组合，这些组合对植物生产力和营养动态产生非加性影响。这种方法将为生态反馈提供重要的见解：1）植物对非生物胁迫的非加性反应; 2）植物遗传变异和土壤微生物系统发育多样性的维持;以及3）土壤养分库的弹性和稳定性（例如，C和N）。